Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants

This is the story of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, which later became the National Union of Railwaymen and later still the RMT.

Work on the mid-nineteenth century railways was hard and dangerous. Accidents claimed the lives of hundreds of railwaymen every year, and one parliamentary inquiry revealed that employees could work 90 to 100 hours a week, with obvious implications for their health and safety and that of their passengers.

Even so, the work was both secure and prestigious, and the rail companies were experienced at dealing with attempts by their workers to organise. When guards working for the Great Western Railway formed a Railway Working Men’s Provident Association in 1865, the company moved swiftly to disrupt it by dismissing its more prominent members.

It was not until 1871 that the first enduring trade union organisation emerged – the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants of England, Ireland , Scotland and Wales (ASRS). Within a year, it claimed 17,247 members, but this represented a tiny proportion of the 250,000 who worked on the railways, and internal disputes weakened the new organisation, so that by 1882 membership had fallen back to 6,300.

The union claimed to represent all types of railway workers. In practice, it did not recruit general labourers or the craftsmen working in the engineering shops. However, its view that the skilled drivers and firemen should be in the same union as station and other workers was not shared by the footplatemen, who would later form the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) – which has resisted all attempts to entice it into merger to this day.

The ASRS played an important role in the emergence of the Labour Party. In 1901, the House of Lords upheld the Taff Vale judgement, making it possible for unions to be sued for the actions of their members – effectively making industrial action impossible, and providing an important impetus to the cause of independent representation for working people in Parliament.

The union had been one of the founders of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 – but in 1910 was again taken to court as the result of a political challenge, when the Osborne Judgement made it illegal to use union funds in support of parliamentary representation.

In 1913, the ASRS merged with the General Railway Workers Union and the United Pointsmen and Signalmen’s Society to form the National Union of Railwaymen, with a combined membership of 267,000.

Membership of the NUR peaked in 1947 at 462,205, but later declined as the railway system contracted. The NUR later merged with the National Union of Seamen to form the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT). In 2004, the union was expelled from the Labour Party after some branches supported rival candidates.

The lists below name all those who served on the national executives of the ASRS and NUR up to the 1920s. They are taken from Fifty Years of Railway Trade Unionism , by GW Alcock (Co-operative Printing Society Ltd 1922), as are the pictures on this page.

Delegates to the first conference of the Amalgmated Society of Railway Servants in 1872.

Executive committees of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants

The London Executive 1871-74
Like other unions, the ASRS placed its early management in the hands of a single locality – in this case, London.
“The London Executive were, of course, from the London branches. They were: King’s Cross, H.J.Rivett, W.H.Baker, G.Laceby, J.Guninter; Battersea, Samuel Cookje, J.Askey, G.Woodina, J.Bargent, N.Teve, A.Hunt; Stratford, T.Christopher, J.Wells, Cleminson, Allsop; West End, W.Cornish, J.Elliott, S.Larkin, Walker, Kemp, Wheeler; South-Eastern, T.Irwin, W.Davies, A.Bone, J.Gadden, W.Grabbam, J.Penbury; Crystal Palace, W.Reeves, G.Mint, B.Brown, J.Page, Chalcroft and Pearson. Even with this number some meetings had to be adjourned because a quorum could not be obtained.”
Source : Fifty Years of Railway Trade Unionism, by G W Alcock

The list is taken from those supplied to the Registrar of Friendly Societies.

1874. Names are not given, but districts are, and a few names can be rescued, most of which figure in 1875. The districts are: Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester , Sheffield, Boston , Birmingham , South Wales, Bristol , North London (two), South London (one).

1881. G. Compton, Bow; G. Watson, Preston; J. Pilcher, Clapham Junction; F. Whitehouse, Leeds; J. Jones, Edge Hill. The records do not show where the others came from, but the “Railway Review” gives the district without the names. And the E.C. minutes the names without the districts. They are Camden , Exeter, Willesden, Birmingham , Miles Platting, Normanton, Accrington, Nuneaton . The only other names on the E.C. minutes, which are the only ones not printed in our 50 years, are B. Pipe, W. Palethorpe, W. H. Trinder, H. Dickinson, E. Barnes.,W. C. Herbert.